Snyder’s road fix: Just raise taxes again

If you want to know what’s wrong with Michigan roads, ask the federal government’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

First, it seems less efficient at compiling data than Facebook. Its latest compilation of state transportation statistics, published in 2015, uses data from 2013. You can’t use it to predict where the next pothole will open on your morning route to work.

The good news is that we are all wrong about Michigan roads. According to its data, 65 percent of Michigan roads have a 95 or lower International Roughness Index score. A 95 or lower rating equates to “good” ride quality and a 170 or lower rating is deemed acceptable. Only 5 percent of roads fell into the just-above-dirt category.

Sixty-five percent puts Michigan in very smooth company. Only Arizona, Nevada, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota and Florida had smoother roads.

Except, and here is the bad news, is that same table uses a second measure to grade those same roadways — the Present Serviceability Rating. By that measure, 47 percent of Michigan roads have unacceptable ride quality, third worst in the nation.

How could the same report reach totally opposite results? It’s simple, really. The same people collecting the data and forwarding it to the Bureau of Transportation statistics are the ones responsible for building and maintaining Michigan’s streets and highways.

They don’t know what they are doing. And that goes beyond reporting pavement condition.

A new report from another group lamenting our failing schools suggests that having more than 800 school districts, with more than 800 superintendents, more than 800 nutrition directors and more than 800 executive directors of public relations and marketing might be part of the problem.

That same inefficiency is rattling the hubcaps off our cars. How many MDOT regional directors, county road commission executive directors, city and village streets superintendents are Michigan drivers contributing their tax dollars to while our streets and bridges turn to dust? And just like schools, some of them are better than others. Sure, local control is the American way, but every road commission should know how to plow a snow-covered road or patch a pothole.

The solution, Gov. Rick Snyder said Tuesday, is to increase taxes. He and the legislature already raised transportation taxes by more than a billion dollars — and after voters said no. Michigan taxpayers already pay more for roads than drivers in most other states, and pay more for fuel, too. And look at the results we get.

Snyder called on Congress to raise the federal tax on gasoline. It isn’t entirely clear how that will clear out the potholes on Stone Street. It would likely make the roads better in Nevada and Florida, though.